The Luckiest Girl
by EverSparrow
Summary: "How could she be the luckiest girl in the world when she didn't have her daddy?" Morgan, and coming to terms with it all.


**A/N: This idea came to me out of the blue (probably from that one part of my brain that's still recovering from Endgame) and I knew I had to write it. I'm a huge Marvel fan, but I've never tried writing Avengers fanfiction before, so please be kind! Reviews are welcome. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading! **

Morgan Stark was the luckiest girl in the world.

It's what her best friend, Emily, pronounced to the whole class on her first day of first grade.

"Morgan Stark is the luckiest girl in the world!" Emily shouted, her pigtails swinging as she stood up on her tiptoes on top of her little plastic chair. Twenty round faces turned up to stare at the girl, who commanded quite a lot of authority for a six-year-old. Embarrassed, Morgan hid her face in her jacket.

"Why's that, Emily?" Ms. Lucy walked over to the girls, a concerned crease on her brow. Morgan liked Ms. Lucy. She was nice and smelled like strawberries, and she always opened Morgan's apple juice for her.

"'Cause she's got an Iron Man suit and she can fly around in it! She's got some computers in her house that make toys, and her daddy was famous-" Emily suddenly stopped halfway through her tirade and clamped her hands over her mouth. Morgan immediately retreated back into her jacket, her eyes welling with tears. She didn't like when people brought up her daddy.

"Emily, that's enough," Ms. Lucy scolded, smoothing out Emily's piece of paper in front of her. "We're all lucky in different ways. Now, why don't you tell me what you've been drawing?"

As Emily launched into a detailed description of her artwork, Morgan tucked her legs up in front of her and wrapped her arms around them, curling up into a little ball. She certainly didn't _feel _like the luckiest girl in the world. Not when her daddy was gone. She missed him. She missed his juice pops and his hugs and kisses and the way he would always make her laugh. How could she be the luckiest girl in the world when she didn't have her daddy?

Ms. Lucy made Emily apologize, and Morgan shyly gave her the required hug of reconciliation. But after that, every time Emily came over, Morgan made sure her mommy put the big blue tarps over all of daddy's machines.

* * *

Morgan Stark was the luckiest girl in the world.

It's what her mother said to her in the middle of the summer after fifth grade when Morgan was lying on her bed and complaining about how bored she was.

"Morgan Stark, you are the luckiest girl in the world." Her mother bustled through the room like a tornado, flinging jackets onto hooks and books back on shelves. "You have so many things you can do, so many opportunities at your fingertips. You have a whole lake outside to swim in, and you have the best big brother in the world, who'll be happy to come and play with you if you just give him a phone call. Stop lounging around and do something, please."

"But mom-"

"Morgan, please. I have to go to work." Pepper leaned forward to brush away Morgan's brown curls and plant a kiss on her forehead. "I love you."

"I love you 3000," Morgan said with a sigh. She'd been saying the words for as long as she could remember, and every time she did, her mother's eyes would fill with tears. Just last week, Pepper hadn't been able to speak to her after remarking how much her eyes looked like her father's.

She laid on her back for ten more minutes before she finally dialed her brother's number and pressed the cold screen of the phone to her ear. Peter wasn't her real brother, she knew, but it didn't matter. He'd been there for her when no one else was, had confided in her just as she had in him. He was on his summer break from college, and she savored every minute she got to spend with him.

"Hey, M!" His voice was cheerful, as always, and Morgan smiled at the sound of it.

"Hi, Peter."

"How's my favorite web-slinger?"

"I'm not a web-slinger," she said in mock frustration, and Peter laughed.

"I know, I know, I'm just messing with you. Bored already?"

"How did you know?" she asked, already knowing the answer. Peter always knew. "Is it your Peter tingle?"

"C'mon, that's a low blow," Peter said with a laugh, and she giggled. He hated May's term for his Spidey sense.

"Will you take me swinging?"

"Definitely not, feisty. You know your mom would kill me if she ever found out we did that again." He was right, Pepper had been furious after the first time.

"How about swimming?" She did her best to bite the hopefulness from her voice. Peter had better things to do than swim with a ten-year-old.

"Man, I wish I could, M, but I'm actually on my way to an armed robbery. A Spiderman's work is never done!" Peter's voice was muffled by a sudden burst of static, and Morgan sighed.

"Alright, bye, Peter. Come see me tomorrow?"

"Wouldn't miss it. Love you, M."

"Love you 3000." Morgan hung up the phone and threw it down onto the covers of her bed. She knew it wasn't Peter's fault, that he really was needed as Spiderman, but there she was, sitting on the edge of the bed, and suddenly her eyes were filling with tears.

Why couldn't he just be Peter, her brother, instead of always having to be Spiderman? Why couldn't the world just save itself for once? And why did it always take from her when it needed saving?

The tears slipped from her eyes and dripped onto her comforter, soaking into the fabric. There was a hole inside of her heart, a piece of her missing, and it was times like this when it really started to ache. She missed her father. She _needed_ her father. She wasn't the luckiest girl in the world, not when the world ripped away everything she loved and claimed it as its own.

And Morgan, alone in her house on the hill, sat on the edge of her bed and cried.

* * *

Morgan Stark was the luckiest girl in the world.

It's what Alexander Davies whined as he treaded water during her sixteenth birthday party.

"Morgan Stark is the luckiest girl in the world." He threw his hands in the air, gesturing at her house and the woods surrounding it, including the large red car parked in the driveway. "I want this place! What was it like having Iron Man for a dad, Morgan?"

"Shut up, Alex," Emily said, splashing him with water as more kids jumped into the smooth water of the lake. "That's rude."

Morgan shrugged, swishing her feet around in the water from where she sat on the side of the lake. She was numb to the remarks by now, immune to the constant mentions of 'Iron Man this' and 'Iron Man that'. _And Emily's one to talk_, she thought with a sad smile, remembering a certain day of first grade that had ended in tears.

"It was great," she called back, and Alex gave her an apologetic grin before slipping under the water to join his other friends. She'd invited her whole sophomore class for this party, and she was definitely beginning to regret it.

"Jump in, More!" Emily waved to her from the water and she waved back hesitantly. "C'mon, aren't you going to at least come in for a few minutes?"

Morgan hadn't been planning on it, actually, but now that Emily was bothering her about it, she supposed she had to. When Emily wanted something, she got it. Gingerly, she got to her feet and started to walk over to the makeshift diving board her Uncle Happy had set up for the party.

"Watch out, Morgan!"

Morgan looked over her shoulder just in time to see two large boys from her class running at top speed towards her, too fast to slow down now, and she was about to duck or move or _something_ when suddenly her whole body was slammed backward by their force. Suddenly she was falling, down, down, down, towards the sharp rocks against the edge of the lake, and she could hear herself screaming, bracing her hands for the fall, but she was too late, and all of a sudden everything went pitch black and she was lost.

* * *

When Morgan finally sat up, rubbing her head, the party and the kids were gone, but there she sat by the edge of the calm lake. Slowly, she got to her feet, and it was then that she noticed the large crowd of people in black by the water's edge.

_I'm dreaming, aren't I?_

And she was dreaming, or at least remembering, for there she stood, eleven years younger, snuggled next to her mother and holding tightly to her hand. Tears filled her eyes as she realized where this was.

Floating in the water was an arrangement of flowers, holding an old arc reactor with seven words imprinted on it that had been burned into Morgan's mind since this moment. _ PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART. _

She surveyed the crowd, her heart tightening at every face she came across. There was Uncle Happy, Peter and May, Clint and Mr. Rhodey. All the people that had loved her father as fiercely as she did stood there, some crying, some not. She could tell that all of them missed him.

"I've got a lot of friends, huh?"

Morgan gasped at the voice, spinning around. There he stood, her father, dressed in a suit with his familiar glasses still perched on the bridge of his nose.

"Dad?"

"How are you holding up, squirt?"

She rushed toward her father without a second glance, letting him envelop her in a hug as tears streamed down her face. He smelled just like he always had, a strangely beautiful mix of metal and cinnamon, and she felt at home in his arms. She'd forgotten how much she'd missed this.

"I miss you, dad. So, so much," she whispered into his jacket, and she felt him plant a kiss on the top of her head.

"I miss you too, Morgana. But I'm so proud of you. Look at you! You're so big now. Growing up way too fast." She leaned her head back to see the lopsided grin on his face, and it made her smile, too.

"I've tried, dad, but I don't know if I can do it without you." She shook her head, and Tony bent down, wiping a tear from her cheek. "I need you."

"Of course you can, little miss. I have every faith in you." He pointed a finger at her, making her smile through her tears. "And I'm always looking out for you up there, you know that? I'll always look out for you."

"I love you," Morgan whispered. She hugged her father tightly, staining his coat with her tears. "I love you 3000."

"I love you even more. Maybe even three thousand and fifty." Tony's voice was choked with tears of his own, and Morgan buried her face in his chest. But she was ready now, ready to let him go. He was always there, wasn't he? He'd always been there. He could be there for the world and still be there for her, too.

And so, tears in her eyes, Morgan Stark slowly withdrew her arms, gave her father one last smile, and let herself wake up.

* * *

"Morgan? Oh, thank God. Peter, she's waking up!"

Morgan opened her eyes slowly and was met with a burst of white light that had her blinking furiously. As her eyes focused, she saw them: her mother, holding her hand, and Peter, standing with his arms crossed in front of her bed, a worried expression on his face.

"Hi," she said weakly, and her mother choked out a laugh, squeezing her hand.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"Tired," she said, and her mother laughed.

"Oh, honey, you scared us there. I didn't think- I couldn't- To think that you weren't safe-"

"I'm the luckiest girl in the world, mom," Morgan interrupted, gripping her mother's hand tightly with her own. "To have you, and Peter, and dad all looking out for me? How could I not be safe when I have three superheroes on my side?" Morgan smiled, and her family smiled back at her, her two lifelines both there to support her.

And Morgan knew that up there, somewhere, her father was smiling down at her too.


End file.
